한국은 국가적으로 신경쇠약에 걸리기 직전이지만 치료 받기는 거부하고 있다

미국 New York Times 에 실린 기사를 경향신문에서 요약한 내용입니다. 원문 기사는 하단에 있습니다.

원문 기사 제목은 Stressed and Depressed, Koreans Avoid Therapy 입니다.

 

 

 

NYT “이혼·자살·입시·폭음… 한국은 신경쇠약 직전”

경향신문 | 심혜리 기자 | 2011.07.08

 

"한국은 국가적으로 신경쇠약에 걸리기 직전인 듯하다."

 

미국 뉴욕타임스가 지난 6일 진단한 한국 사회의 현주소다. 타임스는 과도한 노동과 스트레스 및 상시적인 걱정 때문이라고 분석했다. 치솟는 이혼율과 학업에 짓눌린 학생들, 세계 최고 수준의 자살률 및 근무시간 뒤에도 폭음을 권유하는 남성 위주 기업문화 환경 등을 한국인의 삶의 조건으로 예시했다.

 

타임스는 매일 30여명이 자살하고 있으며 연예인과 정치인, 체육인은 물론 재계 지도자들의 자살도 거의 일상사가 됐다면서 특히 최근 카이스트 대학생 4명의 자살이 한국을 충격에 빠뜨렸다고 소개했다. 타임스에 따르면 한국의 자살률은 미국에 비해 3배가 높다. 1999년 이후 10년 동안 2배가 늘었다. 그러면서도 적절한 심리치료를 꺼리는 한국인의 사고체계에 의문을 제기했다.

 

타임스는 "한국인들은 스마트폰에서 인터넷, 성형수술에 이르기까지 서구 혁신기술을 강박적으로 받아들여 왔지만 정작 불안과 우울, 스트레스에 대한 심리치료를 대부분 거부하고 있다"고 지적했다. 정신치료에 대한 한국 사회의 부정적인 인식과 비싼 치료비, 점술이나 굿과 같은 전통적인 방법의 선호 등을 심리치료를 꺼리는 이유로 꼽았다.

 

타임스는 또 조선대 심리학과 김형수 교수의 말을 인용, "한국에선 자신의 감정문제를 공개적으로 밝히는 게 금기시되는 분위기여서 우울증이 오더라도 대개 참는다"면서 "정신과에 가면 평생 (정신병자라고) 낙인찍힌다는 사실을 알고 있다"고 말했다.

 

타임스는 심리상담을 원하는 사람들도 의료보험에 기록을 남기지 않기 위해 민간 병원을 선호하고 현금으로 계산한다고 전했다. 서울의 정신과 전문의 박진성씨는 "환자들이 시간이 오래 걸리는 대화치료보다 약물치료를 선호한다"고 말했다. 연세대 의대 임상심리학과 오경자 박사는 "한국인들은 심리문제를 치유할 수 있는 자신들만의 방법을 찾고 있다"면서 "아직 좋은 모델이 없을 뿐"이라고 말했다.

 

 

Stressed and Depressed, Koreans Avoid Therapy

By MARK McDONALD

July 6, 2011

SEOUL

 

It can sometimes feel as if South Korea, overworked, overstressed and ever anxious, is on the verge of a national nervous breakdown, with a rising divorce rate, students who feel suffocated by academic pressures, a suicide rate among the highest in the world and a macho corporate culture that still encourages blackout drinking sessions after work.

 

Woonhae Cho for The International Herald Tribune

Jin-Seng Park, a psychiatrist with a practice in Seoul, with a patient.

 

More than 30 South Koreans kill themselves every day, and the suicides of entertainers, politicians, athletes and business leaders have become almost commonplace. The recent suicides of four students and a professor at Korea’s leading university shocked the nation, and in recent weeks a TV baseball announcer, two professional soccer players, a university president and the former lead singer in a popular boy band killed themselves.

 

And yet Koreans — while almost obsessively embracing Western innovations ranging from smartphones to the Internet to cosmetic surgery — have largely resisted Western psychotherapy for their growing anxieties, depression and stress. Talk-therapy modalities with psychiatrists, psychologists and other types of trained counselors are only slowly being accepted, according to mental health experts here.

 

“Talking openly about emotional problems is still taboo,” said Dr. Kim Hyong-soo, a psychologist and professor at Chosun University in Kwangju.

 

“With depression, the inclination for Koreans is to just bear with it and get over it,” he said. “If someone goes to a psychoanalyst, they know they’ll be stigmatized for the rest of their life. So they don’t go.”

 

Mental health experts said many troubled South Koreans seek help from private psychiatric clinics (and pay their bills in cash) so their government-insurance records do not carry the stigma of a “Code F,” signifying someone who has received reimbursement for such care.

 

Even when Koreans do seek out counseling, the learning curve can be steep.

 

A prominent psychiatrist with a practice in Seoul, Jin-seng Park, said it was not uncommon for some new patients to come to his office, talk over a problem for 40 minutes and then be shocked when they’re presented with a bill.

 

“They’ll say, ‘I have to pay? Just for talking? I can do that for free with my friend or my pastor,”’ said Dr. Park.

 

Patients also balk, he said, at the idea of spending more than a couple sessions on talk therapy. Instead, most patients simply ask for, and expect, medication, said Dr. Park, whose Web site advises that “nearly all of the medications used in the U.S. are available here, too. So don’t worry about getting those medications in Korea.”

 

About a third of his patients come for counseling, Dr. Park said, and the rest rely on medication.

 

“Koreans are getting more comfortable with Western psychotherapy, but this is limited to the highly educated and those familiar with Western ways,” said Dr. Oh Kyung-ja, a Harvard-trained professor of clinical psychology at Yonsei University in Seoul.

 

Meanwhile, the suicide rate in South Korea is nothing short of alarming, nearly three times higher than in the United States. The rate here doubled in the decade between 1999 and 2009. Suicide pacts among strangers who meet online is a growing phenomenon. Suicides by drinking pesticides, hanging or jumping from tall buildings are the most common.

 

“We have seen a rapid increase in depression, and I’d say 80 to 90 percent of our suicides are byproducts of depression,” said Dr. Kim. Government mental health clinics have proved effective in helping with basic family or marital problems, he said, “but they’re not getting at depression.”

 

“That issue is still very closed. We still conceal it.”

 

South Korean society has traditionally been underpinned by Buddhist and Confucian values, which emphasize diligence, stoicism and modesty. Individual concerns are secondary. Preserving dignity, or “face,” especially for the family, is paramount.

 

Some experts trace South Korea’s emotional malaise to the decline of these traditional values and the rise of the country as a modern industrial power, starting in the 1980s. South Korea, once even poorer than woeful North Korea, now boasts the world’s 13th-largest economy.

 

“As the society became more oriented toward materialism, people started to compare themselves,” said Dr. Park. “There’s a lot of competition now, even starting in childhood, and the goals of life have moved. We have a saying, ‘If one cousin buys land, the other cousin gets a stomachache.”’

 

With Confucian values on the wane, Koreans use a variety of ways — short of prescribed medications — to wick off the stresses of the hectic pace of urban life. Consulting shamans, outdoor exercise like golf and hiking, alcohol, organized religion, the Internet and travel are common outlets now.

 

Christian pastoral counseling can be a support for some patients, said Dr. Park, who has tutored ministers on therapeutic techniques, although he cautioned that this was no substitute for professional therapy. “Pastors try to treat patients themselves,” he said, “and this can have serious and dangerous complications, even deaths.”

 

Consulting a shaman is still common among many Koreans, usually when they come down with the blues, the odd illness or a run of bad luck. Indeed, shamanism has made something of a comeback in South Korea in recent years, with an estimated 300,000 shamans ministering to clients.

 

Many shamans, known as mudang, even operate sophisticated Web sites these days (complete with online fortunetelling), even as they continue to strangle chickens, walk barefoot on razor blades and commune with dead relatives whose spirits reside in trees, chimneys or woodland creatures.

 

“More Koreans see fortunetellers than psychiatrists,” said Dr. Yoon Dae-hyun, a psychiatrist at Seoul National University Hospital and an official with the Korean Association for Suicide Prevention. “Our biggest competitors are fortunetellers and room salons. They certainly make more money than us.”

 

Room salons are after-work clubs frequented by hard-drinking businessmen who select from a bevy of personal hostesses who ply them with expensive drinks and listen to their problems over the course of an evening.

 

Yu Jeong is a fortuneteller at Daily Motion, a cafe in Seoul that features 15-minute readings (and a free waffle) with the purchase of a coffee.

 

“Psychiatrists treat patients like patients, so the people don’t tell them every bad thing,” she said. “Young people come in here and tell me everything, even the things they won’t tell their parents.”

 

Young people in South Korea are certainly unhappy, even chronically so, in part because of ferocious academic pressures that begin early on. A recent survey here found that young Koreans — for the third straight year — were the unhappiest youngsters in a subset of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries.

 

Ms. Yu said she counsels about 50 people a day, usually couples or small groups of friends who are seeking advice on romance, marriage or changing jobs.

 

“Koreans are trying to find their own ‘package,’ their own set of remedies — and they’re doing this very intensely, of course,” said Dr. Oh, the Yonsei professor. “They are desperately searching for things to do to divert themselves from stress. They just don’t have a good model.”

 

Su-hyun Lee contributed reporting.